Intentional, Not Just Opportunistic: Inside Mayer Brown's Lateral Partner Strategy

This year, Mayer Brown has increased its lateral partner hires, from 26 to 56, by leaning on practice leaders to recruit and emphasizing six particular areas it says touch high-value sectors.

With Big Law's free agency era reaching a fever pitch, law firms are adding high-caliber lateral partners with bigger books of business, more often than ever before.

But while many firms say they're "opportunistic" when it comes to such hires, Mayer Brown leaders say they were intentional about boosting laterals in 2025, leading the firm to double the number of lateral partners it added this year relative to 2024.

The firm, which was on the cusp of $2 billion in revenue, saw its equity tier shrink nearly 10% in 2024, after some lateral departures and after it spun out of operations in Hong Kong and Mexico City.

In 2025, though, the firm increased its lateral partner hires, from 26 to 56, by leaning on practice leaders to recruit, utilizing an agile management committee structure, and emphasizing six particular areas it says touch high-value sectors but were previously "underweight." The 2025 laterals include both equity and nonequity partners.

The firm says the hiring is for the long term. Jon Van Gorp, the chairman of Mayer Brown, said he expects "a very positive financial year" after the expanded hiring, including growth in revenue, net income and revenue per lawyer.

"We just became very deliberate this year about wanting to expand the firm through lateral hiring," Van Gorp said in a December interview. He said that meant putting it at the top of the agenda and empowering and incentivizing "leaders of our groups to go out and find laterals that could be immediately helpful in achieving strategic goals. Not being opportunistic but strategic and tactical."

Van Gorp said the firm specifically targeted leveraged finance and private credit, insurance, energy, infrastructure, capital markets, and white collar and enforcement practices. He added that it was "an intentional effort to upscale in areas we thought we were underweight."

The firm added partners such as James Adams and Frederick Cristman in Washington, D.C. from Hogan Lovells, as well as Adam Farrell and Chris McGarry in London, from White & Case in private credit and leveraged financed. It also added a six-person team led by partners Elina Cross and Trevor Shelton in New York, London and Los Angeles from Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati.

Ken Wainstein, a former Homeland Security advisor and U.S. attorney, was added to lead the firm's white-collar defense practice, and Davina Pujari and Chris Rheinheimer, were added from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in Washington, D.C. in mass torts and environmental enforcement, to name a few.

Van Gorp compared the firm's strategy to that of a pharmaceutical company that's well-known for one or two drugs that are in high demand. "You can keep selling those as a way to structure your company. But you also want to bring new things to market," he said. "We're trying to create a more diversified, larger funnel of brands that clients see as destinations for Mayer Brown, so we can grow not just vertically in areas we're historically strong, but build in new areas for market strength."

And at a time of merger mania in Big Law, Van Gorp is focused on other types of growth. When asked if Mayer Brown is open to growth opportunities through mergers, he said via email: "We are pursuing growth opportunities aligned with our strategic plan, which focuses on promotions, lateral partner hiring, acquiring partner groups, and potentially smaller firms—rather than merging with a firm of similar size."

Consolidated Decision Making

One aspect of Mayer Brown's structure that made the increased lateral hiring possible is its eight-person management committee, Van Gorp said. The group makes decisions on laterals, but also promotions and compensation, so there's "a nice synergy" in the firm's hiring and advancement, writ large, he added.

While it's "definitely not a majority" of firms, "more firms than you'd think" still require a vote of the entire partnership before a lateral can be added, Van Gorp said. Even if it's a formality, it's still another step in the process, he said.

Indeed, firms' increasing size is making the partnership vote setup for lateral hires less common, said Laura Terrell, an executive coach and law firm consultant. Overall, it's leading to more and more firms putting that power into the hands of group leaders and smaller groups. "I think the size of firms is really what's driving the need for more centralized, small-group decision making," she said in an interview.

Van Gorp highlighted it as an attribute that has allowed Mayer Brown to alter its hiring strategy on the fly.

"We move very quickly," he said. "We have an eight-person committee responsible for lateral hiring that allows us to be very nimble and tactically approach opportunities, and work quickly to get to a decision."

Increasing Client Wallet-Share

The flexibility in hiring is helpful at a time when higher-paid partners and large books of business are on the move more often. But the firm's partners said a lateral's book of business isn't the primary focus.

Fred Fisher, a partner and management committee member who heads Mayer Brown's leveraged finance and private credit group, said while the firm is "of course" interested in laterals' books, they first want to know if laterals will be productive on their platform and if they'll fit in culturally. "We're not in the 'can we buy a book of business?' game. It's not long-term, not going to help us get to where we need to go," he said.

Several firms have said they've dialed in on adding laterals from clients they already work with, adding to their firms' so-called wallet-share.

In a broadly high-cost, modest-demand environment, there's "a recognition that, increasingly, work that used to be out in the market, may not ever come out into the market," said Gretta Rusanow, head of advisory services for Citi's Global Wealth at Work Law Firm Group, in an earlier interview about law firms' financial performance so far this year. "It will stay in the four walls of the firm that has built this scale to the degree they can do more for existing clients."

Fisher, the leveraged finance leader, said that's also "one-hundred-percent" part of the way they've recruited, too. "If we can find a client that's recommending a lawyer and convince that lawyer there's more upside, and this is a better home, that's a great story for us, and easy to underwrite," he said.

He told a story about getting to know and making a pitch to "one of the big asset managers," who then recommended Mayer Brown to one of their lawyers at another firm. As it turned out, they had reached out to a headhunter a couple weeks before that.

"So I did a quick screening interview, hopped on a plane, took him to dinner, talked about it soup to nuts," Fisher said, adding, "it was about as smooth as you can get. Now we have a significant expansion with that client," and the lateral has been "off to the races since Day 1."

And although plenty of large law firms downplay geography, especially at a time of geopolitical uncertainty and instability, some Mayer Brown laterals also noted it was a selling point. A real estate and hospitality team from Goodwin Procter, for instance, said Mayer Brown's physical presence in San Francisco and internationally was a selling point for them.

So, too, did Pujari—one of the partners in litigation and dispute resolution who joined from Wilmer this year and who focuses on environmental law, product liability and mass torts. "One of the things that was interesting to us, especially in the industries we work in—chemicals, manufacturing, energy, oil and gas—it provides a lot of opportunities for us to do work for these clients that is potentially international in scope, which is super interesting and doesn't come along every day," she said in an interview, highlighting the firm's international presence.

Mayer Brown didn't only adapt in its overall strategy. Wainstein, the leader of the white-collar defense practice, said one of the draws for him so far is its ability to adapt and sell services based on what's happening in the market.

In his area of expertise, he highlighted the increased influence of state attorneys general, as well as government scrutiny of colleges, as key practices the firm has now emphasized to clients and potential clients. "It's a firm that innovates with the change in circumstances in the market," Wainstein said, adding, "We're not standing still, we're constantly moving forward."

Van Gorp, the firm chair, said while the book hasn't completely closed on 2025, the focused approach on lateral hiring is going to continue for Mayer Brown in 2026. "Because we don't see a way to success if we (aren't) always in the market to hire lateral partners," he said. "That is fundamental."

Reprinted with permission from the December 30 edition of Law.com © 2025 ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited.